On the 9th of July, American-writer Bill Hillmann was gored during the Running of the Bulls with the Victoriano del Río bull-ranch. More particularly, he received the goring from a loose bull by the name of “Brevito” which had been left behind on the course by the rest of the pack. The incident had quite a lot of media impact, not just for being one of just two gorings which took place that day but also because this writer is the author of a book about the Pamplona Running of the Bulls entitled: “How to survive the Pamplona Running of the Bulls”.
Yesterday, Hillmann himself, who regularly writes Facebook posts, wrote about the goring incident of the 9th of July and about the Sanfermin Running of the Bulls in general, and managed to raise some controversy among his followers with his publication. In his article, he blames two British runners, who were wearing similar blue T-shirts, of being the cause of his suffering the goring because they blocked his way and forced him to fall to the ground, at the final stretch leading into the bullring, where he was then gored by the bull. “They got in my way when I was leading the bull towards the entrance to the bullring and one of them pushed me hard so that I fell on my back to the ground”.
One of his readers, however, subsequently accused him of being malicious in his accusation and took a different view of the whole matter. This comment raised a lot of controversy and provoked several different comments from readers and even from Hillmann himself, which only served to stir things up even more.
In view of the growing controversy, the American writer wished to clarify himself by stating that it was not his intention to attack these runners, but simply to point out that they were clearly rookie runners who, on seeing the bull coming up close behind them, panicked and reacted from an instinct of survival. And he went on to say that he did not wish to discuss the incident any further until he felt more objective about the whole issue: “I admit that I went too far in attacking them. I shouldn’t have done it. I am not going to discuss the question any further until I feel more calmed down and objective about the whole thing.”
A few hours later and feeling more objective about the whole thing, Bill Hillmann wrote a new post up and made a clear apology and closed the controversy by stating: “I had earlier written out of anger and indignation. I regret that. I do not blame anybody in any way for what happened to me. During the Running of the Bulls there are always moments of panic and high tension and nobody is to blame for that”.
To learn the full story, you can follow it up at Bill Hillmann’s Facebook.
